‘As soon as we arrived the kids got started on the Woolley Grange Sheep Challenge treasure hunt,’ writes a Guide insider after a stay at this ‘beautiful Jacobean manor house in lovely grounds’.

‘The surrounds are dramatic, the interiors pretty spectacular too.’ Readers report much to enjoy at Robert Dorrien-Smith’s gloriously isolated island hotel.

In the heart of Constable country, Wendy and Jim Sarton’s ancient manor house is a hotspot for painting courses.

'In its glory, in the very beautiful Otter valley', this Elizabethan manor house is the fifth member of Robin Hutson’s Pig family.

‘One for traditionalists,’ write trusted Guide readers, of this child-friendly, dog-friendly Jacobean ancestral home in Thomas Hardy country, run by owners Richard and Brian Prideaux-Brune, with Richard’s wife, Alison.

Cocooned in ‘lovely, peaceful grounds in glorious countryside’, Jean-Pierre Mifsud’s ‘welcoming’ Victorian country house hotel continues to offer an enjoyable bucolic break.

‘More home than hotel’, the Macdonalds’ ‘fabulous’ Victorian country house brims with family history and aristocratic fixtures.

On the Wild Atlantic Way, with views across the ‘dramatic’ Burren Hills to Galway Bay, ‘delightful’ Gregans Castle is ‘the epitome of understated country-house hotel luxury,’ writes a Guide regular this year.

‘The enthusiastic welcome immediately made us feel at home again.’

Surrounded by manicured lawns, wild meadow flowers and woodland, this Cotswold-stone manor house, a few miles outside Tetbury, has ‘exceptional staff, excellent service, delightful furnishings’.

A tapestry room, a state drawing room, a whisky room, a sitting room lined with gilded Cordoba leather… James Thomson’s 17th-century mansion beside Royal Holyrood Park pleases by a fine excess.

A babbling brook etches a course past Louise Dinnes’s ‘good-value, thoroughly dependable’ Victorian pub-with-rooms, where visitors find ‘outstanding food’ and ‘welcoming, efficient service’.

Approached by a private road, this ‘large, rambling but wonderful’ late Georgian mansion, in ‘magnificent grounds’, is owned and cherished by Susannah and Stuart Macpherson.

Surrounded by rolling countryside, yet just a hill away from the sea, this ‘first-rate’ former Victorian farm B&B ‘is a very special place set in beautiful grounds’.

‘Old-fashioned in style and lovely for it.’ Returning guests this year were pleased to discover that Peter Wharton’s ‘splendid’ hotel overlooking Lyme Bay ‘sails gracefully on, without feeling the need to change things for the sake of change’.

‘Aldeburgh is such a delightful place, made perfect by having the Wentworth.’ Praise from a trusted reader for Michael Pritt’s Victorian hotel across the road from the shingle beach.

Grey seals loll the day away along an old ferry slipway on the shores of ‘wild, beautiful’ Loch Glendhu – the ‘superb setting’ for ‘hands-on, energetic’ Tanja Lister and Sonia Virechauveix’s ‘most enjoyable’ small hotel.

‘Tranquil air of relaxed calm’, ‘Good for the soul’, ‘An oasis of peace’. We hear perennial praise for John Edward Joyce’s country house hotel.

Scottish Baronial meets Italian Renaissance in Samantha Leslie’s Victorian pile on one of the last great Irish castle estates still owned by the founding family.

After more than two decades, Frances and Bill Atkins have sold their cherished, creeper-covered 18th-century stone coaching inn overlooking the green in a Dales village – but fans should take heart.

Cumbrian comforts abound at this ‘well-kept’ Edwardian country house hotel, in three-acre grounds in a ‘beautiful setting’ in the Borrowdale valley.

A Victorian baroque showstopper, this manor house stands on a steep hill in gardens above the Fowey estuary. It is part of the Luxury Family Hotels group.

‘We felt comfortable and well fed,’ report readers, following a stay at this remote restaurant-with-rooms overlooking Loch Dunvegan on the Isle of Skye.

Mellow sandstone battlements, turrets and towers are revealed only at the final turn of the ‘lengthy’ drive through the ‘vibrant, meticulously tended’ grounds of Paul and Poppy Szkiler’s 19th-century baronial pile.